Poetry @ IngenuityFest 2010

Ingenuity, Cleveland’s Festival of Art and Technology

The Ingenuity Festival returns with a weekend-long celebration of art and technology, designed for audiences of any age and experience, staged in the center of Downtown Cleveland. Prominent international masters present original works alongside the finest of Northeast Ohio’s performing and visual artists. High technology firms and major colleges and universities are presented alongside acclaimed artists to create a dazzling display of exciting and immersive new work! Ingenuity pushes boundaries, creating a unique festival experience that draws and celebrates diversity, and involves the audience as both spectator and participant!

This Year’s Poetry centered events include:

Malikee Ikiru

September 24, 2010 11:45PM - September 25, 2010 12:00AM@ Span Stage - West Concourse - West Side of Bridge

Malikee Ikiru has been active in the urban poetry scene in Cleveland since the early 90s. He combines the hard revolutionary stance of the late 60s with futuristic images military science fiction. Mixing politics, romanticism, spirituality, and a computer generated world to give his art a matrixesque feeling.  He has done hundreds of shows and opened for such acts as Sonia Sanchez, burning spear and krs1. Are you ready for the revolution? The matrix has you!

Midnight Poetry with Dr. McMahon

September 24, 2010 11:45PM - September 25, 2010 12:45AM@ Span Stage - West Concourse - West Side of Bridge

Hosted by Claire McMahon readers will include: Poetry by Eric Alleman,  Eric Anderson, Diane Borsenik,  Miles Budimir, John Burroughs,  Charlotte Mann, Claire McMahon,  Robert Miltner, Michael Salinger,  Theresa (T.M. Gottl), Russ Vidrick.

Poetry Workshop and Performance with Michael Salinger

September 25, 2010 4:00PM - 5:00PM@ West Courtyard Stage

Student workshops led by poet/educator Michael Salinger. Students will write, edit, rehearse and perform their own original works.

Ray McNiece - Haiku Slam

September 25, 2010 5:00PM - 6:00PM@ Span Stage - West Concourse - West Side of Bridge

Whether you participate or observe you will enjoy the fast paced action of Head to Head haiku – a poetry competition based on the rules of Sumo wrestling. Also, add your thoughts to the endless scroll that will be a Cleveland Rengku. Hosted by local haiku master Ray McNiece.

The festival will be held on the subway level of the Veterans Memorial (Detroit Superior) Bridge in Downtown Cleveland.  It can be accessed from the East and West sides of the river and is protected from the weather.

Rammstein VS Cookie Monster

Wonder where all the readers went? Virtually everywhere in the world people tend to be more educated than their parents. This is no longer true in the United States. A report by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities indicates that the U.S. is one of only two nations on Earth in which people aged 25 to 34 have lower educational attainment than their parents.
full cartoon here


History of the Scienceers - The First New York City Science Fiction Club, 1929


"Gustave Flaubert. . . said, 'I can imagine nothing in the world preferable to a nice, well-heated room, with the books one loves and the leisure one wants.'"

After much mulling and culling, we've come up with our list of the twenty best books of the decade. The list is weighted towards science fiction, but does have healthy doses of fantasy and horror.

Some Favourite Poetry Collections of 2009:

San Fran Chronicle 2009 Best of Science Fiction Books and Poetry Books

Best of Crime B&N LA TIMES

Best of 2009 from Salon and The Millions

Worst of the Decade list
Analyses of works by Herman Melville, Thomas Hardy, and DH Lawrence showed these "unique word" charts are specific to each author.


What is it about poetry that brings out the worst in people?


"It was already clear that his own special study would be the physics of light, and he was naturally drawn to the poem of that name, and learned its last dozen lines by heart."

"The great work of 'saving nations and people'": In his Irish Human Rights Commission lecture, Seamus Heaney pairs human rights workers and poets in bringing "to light violations and injustices done to human beings by others."

Cookie Monster sings with Rammstein




Love Winter Too

Dear Earth take in this fairy breath. Let it
seep into the mischievous crannies, the
rooks and rocks. What is behind the lily,
the foregone conclusion? If we look
at the interstices, the common lines be-
tween sheets of rain. I wanted to write in-
to your heart but the chambers are closed. What
freedom in the rain when memory is for
sale? What response to give a fairy? We
manage, nonetheless, a raucous cheer
with the Daily Show, a tempestuous
cloud of letters. Even with pomegran-
ate molasses to soften the duck: we
cannot change, the most we can do is see.

They dance the serrated edges of the leaves, the milky surface of the pond.
--by Sarah Riggs

Those who can do...

Not too long ago

I was having dinner with a recent graduate from the NEOMFA creative writing program. This is the one that is awarded from a syndicate of Northeast Ohio universities including Cleveland State.

Over our bowls of soup this person told me of some issues he was having in a composition class that he was teaching at a local community college, basic classroom management stuff. ‘Cause what else is one going to do with a MFA? I mean what do folks tell you when they are in such a program, “I can always teach.” So I asked this guy how many education classes had he taken as part of the program. He replied, “None.”

I have to wonder, is this typical? How many of these programs are out there that foist people into professions with absolutely no training for the profession. Was this idiosyncratic to this one person? A cursory look over the courses required shows no education classes. Do you want your gall bladder taken out by someone who understands the theory of its function but couldn’t tell a scalpel from vibrating saw on the stainless steel tray of surgical tools? Who’s to blame?

Too often it seems, when the arts are concerned, the craft of teaching is chucked aside especially by “teaching artists”. No wonder creativity in the classroom is so marginalized. So we successfully completed a series of experimental villanelle examining man’s inability to come to terms with his mortality. What are we going to do about the four inner city youth, high school grads, in our Comp 101 class who obviously are not reading above a sixth grade level? What responsibility do these programs owe to their candidates to provide even the barest modicum of preparation for the main opportunity for use of the terminal degree they are bestowing?

Similarly, artists who go into the classroom without taking the time to learn at least the basics of teaching are liable to, with all good intentions, actually do harm. The best teaching artists I know continue to educate themselves not only in their art form, but in pedagogy and the latest educational theory taking dozens of workshops a year.

See, 99.99% of those in Comp 101 are not going to become professional poets. What is our obligation to them?